The World of Trip-Hop

Here's a solid trip-hop playlist I found while exploring soundcloud. Enjoy.

The World of Trip Hop

Keep Rocking.

Subsense - Tales for Positive Minds

It's the day before finals period begins and therefore the worst day of the year. So when I saw the name of today's album, I knew it was destined to be the album of the day. Subsense's album Tale's for Positive Minds is a miscellany of chill beats and electronic melodies. It's easy listening as you wade through endless Supreme Court cases, hating Justice Brennan's prolix opinions.

You can hear the album here: Subsense - Tales for Positive Minds

Good luck to anyone taking an exam tomorrow.

Keep Rocking.

Beats Antique - Blind Threshold

Todays album comes from Beats Antique, a California band that has been working together since 2007 creating music that combines a variety of styles from the electronic genre with middle eastern and orchestral instruments. The style is often placed in the "electronic/world" music category, but I hate the lump term "world music" being used to define any style coming from outside the states. So lets stick with "electronic/glitch/hip-hop/dubstep/afrobeat/orchestral/middle-eastern" for now.

There are a ton of guest musicians that join the Beats Antique trio for Blind Threshold playing instruments ranging from the Darbuka and Kalimba to Banjo's and Accordions. There are a lot of new sounds that mold together on this album to produce a unique and interesting sound. While there are a lot of different sounds coming together on this album, it maintains a familiar foundation of hip-hop beats and electronic sounds.

The album can be found here: Blind Threshold - Beats Antique

Keep Rocking.

The Like Button

Hi all,

Many of you may have noticed the recent addition of the "like" button to my blog:

I wanted you all to be able to share any music or posts that you like with your Facebook friends. Unfortunately, because I am not good at editing html I did it wrong. Every time you clicked the like button, it would like the entire blog, instead of the individual entry. Well I changed that (hopefully). So now you can like the individual posts as you want. You can also like the entire blog by clicking the like button on the right hand side.

The main goal of this blog is to share music, so "like" away. Not so much this post though, cause this one kind of sucks. But all of you scrolling down to get to Plants v. Zombies feel free to press the new better like button.

Also, please check out this song sent to me from an esteemed music lover, Ben:

Keep Rocking.

Homestuck - The Felt

Today's album The Felt by the guys over at MS Paint Adventures is an electronic/orchestral score. The album comes from the newest MSPA, Homestuck. After a quick perusal of the website MSPA adventures seems to be like a giant game of mad libs! Where readers can submit their additions to the overarching story and this will either continue the story, or tangentially affect the main character. The creator of the website describes it as a story told through the vehicle of a "mock-game" where readers submit new content to aid in pushing the story along (This may be wrong but if you have a better description, I have a comment box). The addition of music to the "mock-game" is a new feature that the MSPA creator has been working on with readers. While the site may be silly at times (sometimes taking a spin for the puerile) the music here is really well put together. I listened to the album before visiting the site, and I have yet to reach a point in the adventure where I can mash up the two. The site is funny and is a great time kill, but I have yet to make it to the end of Homestuck (exams and all).

The album was created in conjunction with the readers of MPSA, and is a pleasure to listen to. At Chartreuse Rewind it takes a turn for the epic, and (fair warning) Omelette Sandwich has parts that get downright distracting. But still it's a good listen.

The soundtrack to Homestuck, The Felt can be found streaming here: Homestuck - The Felt

If you want to "play" the game, I encourage you to visit MS Paint Adventures.

>Readers: Keep Rocking

Laura Shigihara - Plants v. Zombies Soundtrack

Whenever I water a plant, I think to myself "In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, what's this plant going to do for me?". Lucky for me, my questions have finally been answered by the folks over at PopCap with their quirky tower defense game Plants vs. Zombies. In the event that zombies come to your neighborhood, run out to Lowes and buy a ton of sunflowers (you'll need those for extra sun to grow the rest of your botanical army). Strategically arrange your plants for pure flora destruction as you sit and watch from the comfort of your Zombie-free home.

The soundtrack to this game is a fun, quirky arrangement that is far beyond that of your average flash game. For those of you who haven't enjoyed the Electronic explosion in the study music series, here is some indie-classical music...and zombies. The composer Lisa Shigihara has put together an impressive score for this addicting tower defense flash game that is worth listening to even when not playing the game. Shigihara is new to the under-appreciated genre of video game music composition, but the success of this game should open many doors for her.

You can find the soundtrack here: Plants vs. Zombies Soundtrack

Also, (so you don't have to go searching for it) click on the link below to play the web-version of the game:

Plants vs. Zombies (Online Game)

(What's finals without some flash based distractions?)

Keep Rocking.

Govinda - Amethyst Noise

This album by Govinda. the moniker for Texas born Steve O Madden, is entitled Amethyst Noise. The album blends electronic beats with Middle-Eastern, Indian, Celtic and Spanish musical styles. A plethora of different sounds from contrasting genre's make up this 11 track album. For instance, a prominent violin glissando's opens up the first track Dervish. Later on in the album you can hear a sitar melody embossed upon the electronic beats. There is a bit of singing on this album, the majority of which is not in English, so I still use it to study. It's a cool creative style, mixing genre's that do not often come together and certainly is worth checking out.

The album can be found here: Govinda-Amethyst Noise

Keep Rocking.